While not exactly rejecting her royal identity, Princess Haya has long challenged what it means to be a princess. In Jordan, she is the only woman to hold a license to drive heavy trucks. In her 20s, she pursued a full-time career as an equestrian athlete, competing in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and driving her horses across Europe in a custom tractor-trailer.

Now 36, she is the worldly junior wife of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, 61, making appearances in jeans, her long hair flowing, even as his senior wife leads a more private life.